


Recollection

by orionCipher



Series: IgNoct Week 2017 [6]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 16:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11695266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orionCipher/pseuds/orionCipher
Summary: TIMED QUEST: Day 3Prompt: 絆 (Kizuna : Bonds)





	Recollection

**Author's Note:**

> Even the tightest of bonds will eventually grow slack.

Ignis is six to Noctis’ three the first time they meet, and for the first time, he doesn’t feel mad about sitting at the kids table. It takes all of a minute for Noctis to warm up to him and by dessert he’s looking at Ignis like he’s the sun. He wants be someone worth looking up to, and throws himself into his duties.

Around his sixth birthday Noctis has seen one too many animated films for Ignis’ tastes and begins asking questions he’d rather not answer. Like, when would Noctis have to go out and save a princess, how many monsters did he have to slay before he could have a happily ever after, and whether or not he’d need to work on his singing to be a good prince. One thing leads to another, and in the end he’s being stared dead in the eyes as Noctis promises he’ll marry him when they're older, if no one else has married him first, and slides a ring of twisted clover onto his finger.

On Noctis’ first day of school he cries, clings to Ignis and begs him to stay, to not leave him alone. Ignis skips his own classes and spends the better part of the next week helping him acclimate.

When he’s eight, just a few weeks before the Incident, Noct sneaks an abandoned puppy home. Nyx finds out and eventually snitches, and Floofers gets rehoused with one of the staff, but for the few days they have her Ignis learns everything about dogs that the library has. It felt nice, he’ll remember, raising something together.

After the Marilith Ignis finds himself sleeping in Noctis’ bed almost constantly; it’s the only way his prince can sleep anymore. If he’s a little more honest, it’s the only way he can get a good nights sleep anymore too, holding him close, reaffirming his safety. These nights, Noctis isn’t the only one crying himself to sleep.

Ignis faces bullies for the first time when he’s 14. They knew better than to mess with Noctis, but apparently _he_ was fair game. As he’s drifting out of consciousness after a particularly brutal kick to the head, he could swear he sees Noctis running over. Noct never does tell him what happened, but shortly after there’s a change in his schedule – an extra training block for magical control. Ignis never sees the other boys again.

On afternoons when Gladiolus’s training has worn him down, Ignis will sometimes leave him a slice of cake or a hearty, veg-free sandwich. Noct can never find the just right words to thank him, so when Iggy starts his own training Noctis does everything in his feeble culinary power to return the favour. The sentiment, if nothing else, is always appreciated.

Noctis is going on 15 when he tells Ignis he’s never forgotten his promise. It takes the heavy metal sliding onto his ring finger before he remembers what Noct’s talking about. He has a future, a predetermined one at that, but Noct shoots that down. Pushes through the flush burning his face and verbalizes what Ignis has tried to bury in his heart for years, crown be damned. Nothing until he’s older, beyond a kiss, Ignis stipulates, so Noctis seals the deal with one.

His shift at Standing Sushi has run late tonight, which isn’t that uncommon on weekends. Ignis has been ordering tea every half hour on the dot, and even though he’s Noctis’ ride home he still leaves too much for a tip hidden under his stack of plates. Why he won’t let Noctis seat him in anyone else’s section still eludes him.

Even though he’s terrible at it, Noctis makes a cake for Ignis every year for his birthday until he finds a recipe that makes him melt. To think the secret was in the sweet potatoes; Noct finds himself hating vegetables just a little less for this.

It’s Prom and they skip – who needs a room full of rowdy kids when they can just have each other? They listen to the tinny music from a cheap radio they get at a corner store, and slow dance under the night sky, even when they stumble, even when it eventually rains.

The only thing he remembers from the first and only time he and Noct go pub crawling is that Noctis is an ass man, or at least when it comes to Ignis. Drunken make outs led to drunken fondling, which led to Regis’ PR team working double time to suppress the footage someone shot with their cellphone while the two were busy frotting behind a dumpster. Within the week Regis manages to find it in him to look them in the eyes without reddening and they experience the most terribly awkward variant of ‘The Talk’ known to man.

At 20 Noctis is promised to the Lady Lunafreya, the Oracle and Princess of Ignis’ own home of Tenebrae. They both knew it was coming, knew what was expected, but it doesn’t lessen the sting any. Their road trip is a farce of a bachelor party, but it's also the only honeymoon they’ll ever see.

They count the stars and revel in the closeness while it lasts – Noctis has finally accepted his duty, with the passing of his father, as Ignis always knew he would. At least they’ll have these memories to look back on.

Ten years of darkness later and all he has is the ring hidden under his glove. Ignis has been patient, but a decade in darkness and he’s struggling to remember the way Noctis would smile when he ate his cooking, the frustrated face he’d make if he lost in King’s Knight, the constipated look he’d shoot Ignis when dinner was vegetable heavy. He wants his beloved back.

For a short while, he gets his wish. Cradles Noctis’ face and traces the contours, remapping what time has altered and burning it into his memory. He cooks one last dinner. Feigns normalcy. They say their goodbye over a campfire and cling to each other in the solace of their tent, holding each other the way they never could when the world wasn’t on the verge of ending.

Before the first beam of warmth brushed against him, signaling day’s return, he knew. Could feel it in the dizzying knot in his stomach, in the way his lungs didn’t seem to be pulling any air. He chokes on nothing and screams, raging against fate, against the gaping hole in his heart, against the unfairness of it all.

Ignis never takes off the ring; not when he’s angry at Noct for leaving him, cursing the gods, trying to move on, or when his knuckles thicken with age and arthritis. It’s the last thing tying them together, after all.


End file.
